STEPS INVOLVED IN PLANNING
Planning is a process which embraces a number of steps to be taken. Planning is an intellectual
exercise and a conscious determination of courses of action. Therefore, it requires courses of
action. The planning process is valid for one organization and for one plan, may not be valid for
other organizations or for all types of plans, because various factors that go into planning process
may differ from organization to organization or from plan to plan. For example, planning process
for a large organization may not be the same for a small organization. However, the major steps
involved in the planning process of a major organization or enterprise are as follows:
1. Establishing objectives
The first and primary step in planning process is the establishment of planning objectives or goals.
Definite objectives, in fact, speak categorically about what is to be done, where to place the initial
emphasis and the things to be accomplished by the network of policies, procedures, budgets and
programs, the lack of which would invariably result in either faulty or ineffective planning.
It needs mentioning in this connection that objectives must be understandable and rational to make
planning effective. Because the major objective, in all enterprise, needs be translated into
derivative objective, accomplishment of enterprise objective needs a concrete endeavor of all the
departments.
2. Establishment of Planning Premises
Planning premises are assumptions about the future understanding of the expected situations.
These are the conditions under which planning activities are to be undertaken. These premises may
be internal or external. Internal premises are internal variables that affect the planning. These
include organizational polices, various resources and the ability of the organization to withstand
the environmental pressure. External premises include all factors in task environment like political,
social technological, competitors’ plans and actions, government policies, market conditions. Both
internal factors should be considered in formulating plans. At the top level mainly external
premises are considered. As one moves downward, internal premises gain importance.
3. Determining Alternative Courses
The next logical step in planning is to determine and evaluate alternative courses of action. It may
be mentioned that there can hardly be any occasion when there are no alternatives. And it is most
likely that alternatives properly assessed may prove worthy and meaningful. As a matter of fact, it
is imperative that alternative courses of action must be developed before deciding upon the exact
plan.
4. Evaluation of Alternatives
Having sought out the available alternatives along with their strong and weak points, planners are
required to evaluate the alternatives giving due weight-age to various factors involved, for one
alternative may appear to be most profitable involving heavy cash outlay whereas the other less
profitable but involve least risk. Likewise, another course of action may be found contributing
significantly to the company’s long-range objectives although immediate expectations are likely
to go unfulfilled.
Evidently, evaluation of alternative is a must to arrive at a decision. Otherwise, it would be difficult
to choose the best course of action in the perspective of company needs and resources as well as
objectives laid down.
5. Selecting a Course of Action
The fifth step in planning is selecting a course of action from among alternatives. In fact, it is the
point of decision-making-deciding upon the plan to be adopted for accomplishing the enterprise
objectives.
6. Formulating Derivative Plans
To make any planning process complete the final step is to formulate derivative plans to give effect
to and support the basic plan. For example, if Indian Airlines decide to run Jumbo Jets between
Delhi an Patna, obliviously, a number of derivative plans have to be framed to support the decision,
e.g., a staffing plan, operating plans for fueling, maintenance, stores purchase, etc. In other words,
plans do not accomplish themselves. They require to be broken down into supporting plans. Each
manager and department of the organization is to contribute to the accomplishment of the master
plan on the basis of the derivative plans.
7. Establishing Sequence of Activities
Timing a sequence of activities is determined after formulating basic and derivative plans, so that
plans may be put into action. Timing is an essential consideration in planning. It gives practical
shape and concrete form to the programs. The starting and finishing times are fixed for each piece
of work, so as to indicate when the within what time that work is to be commenced and completed.
Bad timing of programs results in their failure. To maintain a symmetry of performance and a
smooth flow of work, the sequence of operation shaped be arranged carefully by giving priorities
to some work in preference to others. Under sequence it should be decided as to who will don what
and at what time.
8. Feedback or Follow-up Action
Formulating plans and chalking out of programs are not sufficient, unless follow-up action is
provided to see that plans so prepared and programs chalked out are being carried out in accordance
with the plan and to see whether these are not kept in cold storage. It is also required to see whether
the plan is working well in the present situation. If conditions have changed, the plan current plan
has become outdated or inoperative it should be replaced by another plan. A regular follow-up is
necessary and desirable from effective implementation and accomplishment of tasks assigned.
The plan should be communicated to all persons concerned in the organization. Its objectives and
course of action must be clearly defined leaving no ambiguity in the minds of those who are
responsible for its execution. Planning is effective only when the persons involved work in a team
spirit and all are committed to the objectives, policies, programs, strategies envisaged in the plan.
PROCESS OF EDUCATIONAL PLANNING
The process of educational planning is a complex one involving the interaction of three distinct
bodies, namely, the polity or legislature, the technical or professional planner and the
administration which is commonly referred to as bureaucracy (Babalola, 2003).
The polity or legislature represents the government of the day at the time of the plan. This body
gives directives on duration of the plan which are prone to be politically based.
The technical planer is responsible for analysis of the education system, making available
projections for enrolment, physical facilities funds, and personnel required for an education
project.
The bureaucracy – constitutes the executing channel of educational planning which often times
create serious bottleneck to plan implementation.
Azunwena and Uchenna (2011) identified phases of the planning process in education as follows:
1. Plan making: This is the initial stage of the planning process, where the stakeholders
express their desires and needs.
2. Plan formulation: At this stage, a committee made up of the professionals in the field of
planning and education sector are put in action to brainstorm and formulate plans.
3. Plan implementation: This is the most crucial stage in the planning process. At this point
the formulated plan is put into a action based on the availability of human and material
resources.
4. Plan Evaluation: This stage involves assessing the extent to which the objectives of the
plan have been accomplished. It serves as a forum for examining the weak and strong points
in the plan projections and problems encountered during implementation stage.
5. Feedback: This is the stage in the planning process that links the evaluation, with plan making. This is the evidence to show that planning process is cyclic in nature. This stage
presents the success and failure recorded at the implementation state which helps the
planners in the beginning of another plan on how to improve and rectify the problems that
resulted in failure.
APPROACHES TO EDUCATIONAL PLANNING
The word ‘planning’ has lost the undertones it had earlier of infringement with individual liberties
and is becoming increasingly accepted by all as part of the vocabulary of development, each
country having its own type of planning within its own political system. In what follows, planning
refers to the system a country adopts of forecasting its needs and setting up a framework, or
alternative frameworks, of national action to meet them. It deals with matters which are subject to
forecast and to substitution and can never cover the whole policy. A sudden policy decision to
devaluate the currency or to enter a common market may have more important effects on economic
development and social structure than the most detailed ten-year plan.
The main approaches and techniques of relating educational planning to development planning,
which are in use or recommended by various authorities are set out below. Usually, combinations
of methods are in operation:
1. Social Demand Approach
The first approach, which may be called the social method is in general use, but is scarcely
a method at all, and is a starting point from which improvements must be devised. This
method takes educational needs in terms of the current demand for education at the
different levels and projects them on the basis of population increase, age distribution,
long-term national or social goals (inarticulate or defined) and on the basis of what is
known about state and consumer preferences for education. Among such goals and
preferences are universal literacy, universal compulsory primary education, and cultural
objectives. The stress is upon education as social infra-structure for development purposes,
and as an end in itself. The financial implications of these targets are then considered. The
usual result is that the funds required for the educational expansion are found to be larger
than those available either to launch or to sustain it, on the basis of projections of national
income and revenue. A compromise is struck, and what is deemed to be a feasible plan
emerges, cut down to the funds expected to be available. This is the traditional approach,
and may work satisfactorily in high-income countries, although even in these, concern over
flagging rates of growth and ever-increasing competition in export markets is leading to
increased emphasis on the contribution of education to technological progress and
productive efficiency.
2. Manpower Requirement Approach
The second approach, which we may call the manpower approach, is based on the fact that,
as we saw earlier, the main link of education with economic development is through the
knowledge and skills it produces in the labor force. To the extent that the educational
system produces qualified people in the right numbers and places, the major part of the
economic and social contribution of educational planning is achieved, provided that in so
doing the educational system has not consumed so great a proportion of resources as to set
back the development plan itself. Various methods exist of estimating future manpower
requirements and the demand they will make on the education system. But various
difficulties hamper this approach as Professor Harbison recognizes. First, manpower
forecasts can seldom be made with reliability beyond short-term periods of five to eight
years. The time perspective required by educational planning as a whole is fifteen to twenty
years, though it is possible to influence over shorter periods the supply in the ‘pipe-line’.
Secondly, the educational component of different occupations changes with technological
progress and the rise of educational standards.
A further limitation on the manpower approach is that it leaves out of account provision
for education as a ‘consumers’ good’, and it makes no provision for the ‘social minimum’.
It is tempting to believe that these objectives might be obtained as by-products of the
training for occupation by influencing curricula, but this is unlikely. The occupational
needs of the economy are not the whole of society’s needs for education. An addition has
to be made for women and girls who are not gainfully employed, and for the amount of
education which a country requires to fulfill its cultural, political, and social goals. It is
also necessary to assure that educational output will grow faster than demand to the degree
required to stimulate growth, without creating problems of unemployment. The educational
plan must also provide for turnover of employment and continuous adjustment between the
educational system and the socio-economic environment. Full account must be taken of the
‘wastage’ involved in various educational systems, as well as students switching in midstream, students’ and parents’ preferences, locational disequilibrium of supply and
demand, and adjustments required by technological change.
Finally, there is the problem that the composition (or ‘product mix’) of the development
plan leading to the occupational demand must not be determined irrespective of the
educational requirements it imposes. The composition of the target ‘product mix’, and of
the investment program undertaken to achieve it, must depend in part on the relative cost
of the various types of educational programs needed. In short, investment in education and
in all other sectors of the development programs should be mutually determined. Professor
Arthur Lewis, in his article ‘Education and Economic Development’’ dealing with what he
calls ‘investment education’ states: ‘One can calculate the percentage of the age cohort
who should receive secondary education from the formula:
X = n (a+b+c)/m
Where:
x = proportion of age cohort to be recruited;
n = ratio of number of secondary-type jobs to adult population;
m = ratio of number in age cohort to adult population;
a = normal percentage wastage of nationals of the country;
b = abnormal wastage due to replacement of expatriates;
c = percentage of rate of growth of the number of secondary-type jobs.
‘Of these c is the most difficult factor to assess.’
If this formula is to be used to estimate total requirements, and to be used widely, we have
to add the secondary school places needed to maintain the flow to higher education, since
this flow has to pass through the secondary level. We have also to make provision for
education of women and girls and others who do not work. A further comment on Professor
Lewis’ formula is that it does not take account of the fact that as national income rises the
proportion of the labor force to the total population normally becomes less. This is caused
by the raising of the age of entry into the labor force, by the lowering of the age of
retirement, and by the reduction of the number of workers marginal to the labor force (e.g.
married women). Thus quantitative estimates of educational requirements based solely on
labor force demand ten to fifteen years ahead would underestimate a country’s over-all
educational needs.
3. Education-Output Ratio Method
The third method is based on the capital-output ratio approach and might be called the
education-output ratio method. It relates the stock of educated people and the flow of
children and students completing education at the different levels directly to the national
output of goods and services without passing through the intervening stage of making
manpower forecasts. A series of linear equations are set up relating the stock of persons
who have completed a given level of education, and the number of students at each level,
to the aggregate volume of production. These equations will show how the structure of the
educational system should change with different growth rates of the economy. This method
is developed by Professor Tinbergen. Every method has its difficulties and limitations. The
problem here is that assumptions have to be made about teacher-student ratios and about
the adequacy of the relations of the education ‘mix’ to the product ‘mix’ at the base from
which the projection is made. If these assumptions are incorrectly made they will invalidate
the conclusions. Further, the differences of rates of growth in the different economic
sectors, and increases of productivity, need to be included. The range of assumptions as to
the technical coefficients is very wide. None the less this method, used with good informed
judgment, is a useful exercise to be set alongside the other approaches.
A further difficulty common to both the manpower and the education output ratio
approaches is the assumption that a given output requires a fixed volume of manpower
with fixed amounts of education and training. The fact is, however, that certain latitude
exists for substitution of capital for manpower in general, and for substituting additional
education and training for man-hours. A given output may be produced with a small
number of highly trained workers or a large number of less trained workers. It may even
be possible, through automation, to produce it with a smaller number of less highly trained
workers. In short, just as the choice of technology, and its implications for education, is an
important aspect of development programming, so is the choice between more education
and training and less employment, or less education and training and more employment in
each sector. The broader the categories of output, and the broader the definition of
educational inputs, the less fixed are the relations between them and the wider the area of
choice. In many developing countries the shortage of data, of mathematical statisticians,
and of computing facilities, would not permit computation and projection of relationships
among large numbers of output categories and large numbers of education projects. In such
cases, the choice of parameters to be used for projection-a choice which is a policy decision
and not a matter of statistical analysis alone-is more important than the projection as such.
The model provided by Professor Tinbergen, however, breaks new ground in setting out a
comprehensive system of variables and relationships which provide a conceptual basis for
a quantitative estimation for the planning of the educational system.
4. Aggregate Method
The fourth is the aggregate method. This method tries to relate educational needs to the
whole demand of society for education rather than to the level of output or to manpower,
and is based on norms and patterns which emerge from an empirical study of the
educational situation in countries at different stages of development. Among them are (a)
the proportion of GNP devoted to education globally and (if possible) by sector; (b) the
proportion of public expenditure devoted to education and its different sectors; (c) the
proportion of over-all investment devoted to education; (d) the proportion of the population
enrolled at the different educational levels; (e) the above information corrected by
estimates of wastage; (f) the proportions of the school-age and student population enrolled
at different levels.
Patterns of educational development in relation to over-all development can be seen by
setting these coefficients against indices of economic growth and social attainment. Social
indices can be used with the help of ranking techniques. Use can also be made of data on
what appear to be irreversible trends, e.g. the movement from primary to secondary and
tertiary occupations, and estimates of the relative rates of growth of more highly qualified
manpower in relation to the total growth of the labor force. A number of problems arise in
respect of the interpretation of the coefficients listed. For example, the proportion of GNP
spent on education will vary with the age composition of the population and not reflect an
equality of effort. Another variant strongly influencing the comparison is the ratio of per
capita teachers’ salaries to per capita income, as the country differences are wide and the
greatest proportion of educational cost is made-up of teachers’ remuneration. A full study
of this approach is contained in Professor Harbison’s chapter in this volume.
5. Comprehensive Approach
Fifth, there is what we may call the human resources assessment approach which is a
comprehensive one. It was developed by Professor Harbison. It starts from the position that
education is one of the main sources of human resource formation, other sources being
measures in the fields of manpower, employment, training and health. The strategy of
human resource development consists of integrating these factors with general economic
and social development planning. It takes into consideration such factors as the scale of
development feasible considering the availability of specialized manpower, the scale of
development needed to absorb the backlog of unemployed and the new entrants to the labor
force, the extent of in-service training in industry, the pattern of investment priorities
envisaged in the plan and the broad economic, social and educational goals of development
planning.
4 MAJOR APPROACHES TO EDUCATIONAL PLANNING – EXPLAINED!
Article shared by Deepti Verma
There are four major approaches to educational planning.
1. Social Demand Approach:
This approach was used in the Robbins Committee Report on Higher Education in Britain.
In India too, this approach is a popular one while opening new schools and colleges in
particular.
In this method are involved the following steps:

To estimate the proportion of students completing school education and are likely
to enter into higher education.



To estimate how many of these successful school leaving students would actually
apply for admission to colleges.
To determine how many of the applicants should be given admission to higher
education.
To determine the length and duration of the study.
Thus, the major issue involved in this approach is to forecast future demands for seats
keeping in mind social and educational trends as well as demographic changes. The
underlying assumption in this approach is that expansion of education is beneficial to the
economy and thus, additional expenditure on education would not create a burden too
heavy to bear.
This approach is more prevalent in those societies which favor traditional cultural values,
where decisions are taken on the basis of public opinions (in a fragile polity and sometimes
in a democracy) and in societies where the social environment is generally pessimistic in
nature.
The approach is based on currently expressed preferences and does not take into account
public expenditure on education vis-a-vis the benefits as the demand for education may far
exceed the resources available in a vast country like India. Also, it sometimes leads to a
mismatch between the output of higher education and the demands of the economy.
2. Social Justice Approach:
This approach emphasizes justice to the disadvantaged sections of society and is based on
Article 45 of the Indian Constitution. This approach is aimed at making special provisions
for the socially, economically and educationally disadvantaged communities for a longer
duration. This includes opening Ashram schools for tribal areas, special concessions and
scholarships, incentives and relaxation.
3. Rate of Returns Approach:
According to this approach, investment in education should take place in such a way that
the returns from the investment are equal to the returns from other kinds of investment of
capital, e.g., investment in industry. This principle is known as ‘equi-marginal returns’ in
economic theory and could be extended to educational sector.
This approach treats education as an investment in human capital and uses rate of returns
as a criterion in allocation of financial resources. The approach implies that if the rate of
return is low, expenditure on education should be curtailed.
However, in reality, it is difficult to apply this approach to education due to problems
associated with measuring rate of returns in education.
An educated person’s earnings or rate of returns depend upon his/her innate intelligence,
parental socio-economic status, motivation and aspirations. Hence, it is not easy to attribute
the rate of returns only to education acquired. Hence, this approach is least frequently
applied to education.
4. Manpower Planning Approach:
In this method, the general demand for and the capacity of supply of human resources in
different streams of and at different levels of the educational sector are estimated.
The approach asserts that the system of education produces the right quality of human
resources with desirable knowledge, attitudes and skills in the right numbers and thus,
education is directly linked with economic development.
The application of the manpower planning approach depends on these factors:





An appraisal and analysis of the existing employment conditions and the system of
education,
Planning the system of education vis-a-vis the manpower needs of the economy,
and
Using the financial resources (which are limited) in an optimum way so as to fulfill
the demands of the employment sector without incurring wastage on account of
unemployment.
Making an appraisal of the number of students enrolled, the number of existing
teachers and their qualifications, enrolment in teacher education institutions
(availability of future teachers), as well as the existing number of school buildings,
equipment, infrastructure and other facilities.
The requirements of the employers regarding occupational and/ or professional
qualifications for employees, their levels of training and abilities should also be
assessed.
The manpower planning approach takes note of the fact that the teaching profession
requires approximately 60% of the highly qualified human resources of a country which
competes with the demand for manpower in other economic sectors.
A detailed projection of the demand for human resources is difficult due to the uncertainty
of productivity trends. Some developed countries such as Norway, France and Sweden
estimate their future manpower needs so as to meet the demands of the economy whereas
others such as Great Britain estimate the numbers to be educated on the basis of students’
demands.
Source:
https://www.educarepk.com/steps-involved-in-planning.html
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339469938_APPROACHES_TO_EDUCATIONAL_P
LANNING
https://www.educarepk.com/approaches-to-educational-planning.html
https://www.shareyouressays.com/knowledge/4-major-approaches-to-educational-planningexplained/100976